US To Share AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine With Rest Of The World

(RTTNews) - The United States plans to share millions of doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine with the rest of the world, the White House has announced.

"Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the U.S. already has and that have been authorized by the FDA, and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the U.S., we do not need to use the AstraZeneca vaccine here during the next several months," said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients. "Therefore the U.S. is looking at options to share the AstraZeneca doses with other countries as they become available."

The U.S. currently has a stock of 60 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine, which the country is not using as the vaccine has not been approved by FDA, while the country has three other vaccines that has been approved for emergency use. This stock can be expected to be available for export to other countries. The Biden administration had last month shared about 4 million doses of the vaccine with Mexico and Canada.

The White House is currently satisfied about the supply of the three vaccines being administered in the U.S., after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was restarted over the weekend. The FDA has so far authorized three vaccines against Covid-19, which includes Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

Biden administration has been under immense pressure in recent weeks to share its vaccine supply with the world, as countries like India are experiencing a big surge coronavirus cases.

Meanwhile, in a phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, President Biden promised more emergency assistance "including oxygen-related supplies, vaccine materials and therapeutics."